


Breathe

by MemeFont



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Little Mermaid Elements, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-26 01:58:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15653418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MemeFont/pseuds/MemeFont
Summary: A beautiful stranger saves prince Hwang Hyunjin from drowning, and now he's on a quest to find him again.(Seungjin, with side Changlix, Woochan, and Minsung!)





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This work was created based off of a The Little Mermaid au I thought of but it was written by more than just me! 
> 
> Writers: me/@Cutebinie on Twitter and @florajjk on Twitter! 
> 
> We hope you enjoy or first chapter!

Drowning. Everyone experiences drowning whether they know it or not.

People drown in their own emotions daily. Happiness, sadness, anger: seas of feeling.

However, Hwang Hyunjin was experiencing actual drowning in this moment. A real sea with real water, and a real lack of air. Now, because of the literal drowning that he was experiencing, Hyunjin was battling the sentimental kind of drowning. Would he die? What would others do if he died? Did the black sea that was consuming his being care that it was doing so? Did he care?

He wasn’t sure, because at this moment there was nothing to care about. He couldn’t move, the water like thick jelly surrounded him. He didn’t have the energy to move and had lost the last of his breath. So, he just let it be.

Then, he was fading; eyes daring to shut, repeatedly in a cruel cycle of unconsciousness. When a pair of arms shot out of the blackness of the sea and his vision, he was sure he was just hallucinating. And finally, Hwang Hyunjin, the prince of a nation beheld by the sea, was out.

That first breath of fresh air both pained Hyunjin and refreshed him. His lungs burned and strained. He coughed and gagged until the water was out, leaving him panting. But, before he could open his eyes to his savior, he went unconscious. Once again, darkness filled his vision again. But this time, he felt safe. He felt warm and happy. Hyunjin wasn’t sure why he felt this after a near-death experience, but that’s just another thing to add to his confusion. He could hear something, but was unsure to the sound. It was a melody, so sweet that is comforted him.

He found that his body was reaching for the sound, slowly awakening to hear it louder. His eyes remained closed for a moment, the bright light of the morning burning them. He could hear the sound louder now, a beautiful voice. The melody was sweet, but felt melancholic. Almost as if the being singing it was upset. Hyunjin slowly opened his eyes, letting them to adjust to the bright sunrise.

He, for the second time that day, was breathless. The person before him held the most stunning features he had ever seen. Dark chocolate eyes, softer than any eyes he had ever looked upon. His face was round and looked softer than any cloud. His pink and rosy lips, not too big, but not too small. His voice, so smooth and beautiful. Hyunjin thought that if he were to die, he would want to hear this voice before he left this world.

Before Hyunjin could say a word, he heard quick footsteps approaching. He saw the man before him jump in surprise, his eyes widening. He moved from on top of Hyunjin and started for the water. Hyunjin, still freshly woken up from his slumber, couldn’t move to catch him. Instead, he laid there and felt helpless. The sand was warm. The weather was nice. He should be happy, in this case, right? He was alive. Hwang Hyunjin would live and breathe and laugh another day!

He felt like he was drowning, but he was completely dry and covered with sand that felt like it was burning his skin now. He missed the chance to thank his savior. The soon to be king of a nation couldn't even muster up the strength to be thankful. 

As he sat up, the apparent feeling of stabbing hit his lungs. Oh yeah, that's right. He had to remember to breathe. Clutching his chest and huddled over with laboured breaths, Hyunjin looked around frantically for any person who resembled the beautiful man with a heavenly voice to no avail. Instead he heard a very deep voice yelling for him in a panic. 

“Hyunjinie hyung!!!” After finding a tiny figure with blonde hair run over to him, waving frantically in the air to get his attention. Felix was his friend; another prince from a nearby nation who often visited him. They were close friends who shared many hobbies, interests, and secrets. 

While he loved seeing the other boy, he was disappointed that it wasn't the beautiful stranger.  
“Felix…” Hyunjin’s voice was quieter than he expected. It was raspy and gruff.  
“Hyunjin where have you been?! You didn't come home when the ship docked and we we're all worried sick!! Especially your parents!!”

Hyunjin had no reply, he could barely speak. His mind was filled with fuzz, he wasn’t entirely sure what had happened himself. Hyunjin then heard a noise that caused him panic: a sad sniffle came from the other, making his head shoot up and meet the other’s tearful gaze.  
“You more than worried me Hyunjin, I looked for you all night! Please, don’t do that to me again..!” The other prince’s eyes gleamed and shown, obviously damp with tears threatening to spill past his eyelids.  
The look that the other gave him made him feel a painful twinge in his heart. He felt terrible. Hyunjin stared at him, eyes sympathetic and apologetic all at once, and simply nodded. He would never do that to his closest friend again. He promised this to himself silently as if it was an oath to himself.

“Alright, well,” Felix sighed heavily, shaking his head slightly before continuing on, “ You can tell me about what happened later, ok? For right now, just come with me. I gotta get you back to king and queen,” Felix remarked.

Hyunjin watched as Felix lifted his limp body to carry him. He put one arm over the other and supported Hyunjin’s weight as they walked to the car waiting for them.

Hyunjin and Felix didn’t speak a single word on the way back. The car engine hummed and a popular radio station was put at a low level. Hyunjin stared out the window with a blank gaze. Hyunjin’s mind was too occupied with the strangers glowing face. So elegant and pure. Who  
was he? How did he save him? Why did he save him? Questions filled his mind without any answers. All he knew, was that he wanted to see that graceful stranger once again. He would be sure of it.

Before he knew it, Hyunjin and Felix had made it back to the castle. Looking out the window, he could see the oversized, expensive, and shining place Hyunjin called “home.” Don’t get him wrong, Hyunjin loved his parents and what they gave him, but he was tired of being pampered and told what to do and what not to do. He didn’t want to live as a doll, designed to become something without free will. He wanted to run the country freely as he wants. He studied for this his whole life, he wanted to create a society of free people. He wanted to be able to travel the world and find that special someone to spend it with. But, alas, Hwang Hyunjin couldn’t be like normal kids. He had a duty to fulfill, one that he must promise to fulfill.

“Hey, stop spacing out were here,” Felix nudged Hyunjin from his daydream. The driver had opened the door for them, letting them out one at a time. Felix once again put his arm around him to support him as they sluggishly walked to the grand, wooden door ahead. Creaking it open, guards lined the entrance wall to wall. Hyunjin often wondered if things like precious cargo felt like this when being transported: trapped in by security.

The inside was painted with royal blues, magnificent golds, pearly whites, sleek blacks, and red carpets. Pictures of ancestors and former royals hung upon every inch of the walls. Red curtains on the windows that lined symmetrically on the far right walls. The guards were dress in the same royal blue uniforms with red sashes, the gold family coat of arms plastered on the ribbons. Noticing the princes, some of the guards greeted the princes politely, “Welcome back your highnesses. How do you do?”

Both the princes nodded to the guards, acknowledging them as they made their way to the throne room. Walking in, once again guards lined every inch of the place. The area was a long hallways, similar to the entrance area. Painted the same blue, the same red, the same shimmering colors, and, yes, even more pictures. Hyunjin always thought that the amount of ancestor pictures they had were extremely unnecessary and more than unsettling sometimes.

The two figures that were sitting at the throne shot up when the door opened. As Hyunjin and Felix slowly approached, the queen wailed, “Hyunjin!” She stood up and quickly walked over to him, tears filling her eyes.  
She hugged him too tightly, Hyunjin could feel his lungs shoot in pain, like a sharp knife stabbed them.  
He yelped slightly and his mother let go quickly, “Oh, dear you’re hurt..! Guards! Please get me the family practitioner to check him out as fast as you can.”

The guards scurried and shuffled to get the doctor and Felix moved aside to let the queen see her son. Hyunjin felt a stare on his head, he looked up towards the location of it. His father looked at him. Hyunjin searched his face, trying to find anything. Sympathy, pity, worry: anything. He found nothing. No spark of painful emotion towards him. They just looked at each other, almost in mutual understanding. Except, Hyunjin never understood his father.

Before Hyunjin could even make a sound, he was being dragged off to the practitioner. He felt like a rag doll being pulled from place to place. The practitioner and their assistant blabbering medical terms away to each other, checking for any outward wounds.

They started with a routine checkup, seeing if there was any water left sitting in his lungs or even if he had things as simple as bruises. The check up and tests felt like hours to Hyunjin. He was getting bored at this point, tired of being poked and prodded. He just wanted to go back to his room to the security of his warm, comfortable bed and sleep off what happened.  
“Hyunjin.” A voice, slightly old and raspy, broke him out of his daze.  
He looked up to the doctor as they continued, “you have a few minor injuries, some bruising on the bones. Take a rest for a week and avoid high intensity physical activity. Other than that, you’re lucky.” The doctor gave him a smile and wrote something down on his clipboard, scribbling and scratching ink against paper.  
He ripped something from the piece and handed it to his assistant, and Hyunjin wondered how anyone could possibly read his terribly messy handwriting.

He was escorted from the examination room and ordered to go shower and head straight to bed. Felix had left a note in his room saying he’d be back tomorrow as soon as he could. Hyunjin smiled happily at the note, beaming at the thought of Felix coming back to his side. At least his friend expressed genuine care. He walked over to his bathroom and proceeded to shower. The bathroom was grand, as expected. Porcelain and beige colors filled the room along with a large tub in the back of the bathroom was filled with hot, steaming water and decorated with an assortment of colorful tiles lining the sides. The white sink lined the right of the bathroom, a long mirror following suit to complete the picture. All in all, everything was shiny and perfectly cleaned.

He took off his button down shirt, ripped and torn from the violent throws of the ocean he experienced. He looked towards the mirror sitting above his sink. It was the first time Hyunjin had seen himself since he drowned. Oddly, somehow he felt different without looking much different physically. He simply looked sick.

“God, I look awful,” he mumbled to himself, voice still gruff. His sun kissed skin was scratched and puffy where any kind of wound laid, eyes dull and red around their rims, only to be accompanied with a tired gaze. His lips, a duller red than usual and cracked from dehydration, and hair strewn around wildly in an unmannerly fashion. His chest and arms were blue and black, bruises and scabbed scratches here and there. He looked like he was thrown into a fight, he felt like it. It was no wonder that his mother and his loyal subjects were fussing over him so much at the moment. He sighed and continued to undress and walked to the bath.

The hot water stung his skin, but Hyunjin revelled in the feeling. He felt as if he was being cleansed, starting new. The warmth that surrounded him made him feel secure and safe. He finally had some time to himself and only himself. He could had the freedom to let his mind wander. As he carefully washed himself, the smell of lavender filled his senses. It relaxed him and made his emotional drowning recede into the water along with him. Only one thought was left sitting in his mind: that beautiful boy. 

The boy that made his heart race and he didn't know why. Hyunjin had never experienced such a feeling. He had never gotten a red face just from looking at someone before. He could only describe it as what he’d watched in the movies and read in novels.  
They described the feeling as supposed butterflies in the stomach, accompanied by hearts fluttering and speeding up. Cheeks have a reaction as well, becoming pink and rosy before your palms started to sweat. Hyunjin laid his head back on the tub, staring at the white ceiling. 

Was what Hyunjin was feeling attraction? He blinked, wondering if that’s what he just experienced. Hyunjin was sheltered most of his life, he had never been allowed to the the town. He was to remain within the nation only, his parents dealt with overseas relations. He wasn't allowed to fall in love or be friends with anyone but a royal; though, he had broken the friends rule long ago by now. Hyunjin always wondered how he was going to be king of a nation that he had never stepped foot out of.

Hyunjin had never had interest in girls. His parents had introduced him to women from all royal nations at a young age, desperately trying to find their nation a queen early on. He tried to feel something, but to no avail. At the age of 16, he told his parents that he couldn’t be with a woman. He tried but he couldn’t. He remembered the tears of regret he felt, but his mother was always on his side. She welcomed his feeling with open thoughts. He remembered her telling him, “Son, if being with a prince is what you want then so be it. I want you to spend your life full of happiness, not burdened by the baggage of guilt.”

She had hugged him so tightly, it was nearly hard to breathe. He remembers looking over her shoulder to see his father. The look on his father’s face, he accepted him, but he could tell he wasn’t happy. His father was, more or less, traditional, and wanted everything to stay as it is. The change was something new, but he didn’t reject his son. Instead, he nodded and made a sound, as if said sound meant he was saying that he would accept him and this new reality. Hyunjin wasn’t sure if he’d ever understand his father, but now they were in search for lovely princes that he would marry. Felix was one of them.

Hyunjin sighed loudly. The water was getting cold while he recalled his memories. He rose from the tub, water dripping from him, and he dried himself with a fluffy, white towel before wrapped it around his waist. Walking out to his room, his head filled the same thoughts and feelings. The room was, once again, filled with royal blue walls, red carpet, and a gold bed frame. The bedframe sat in the back center of the room, grand and large. His bed, bigger than necessary for one person, the sheets a crisp ivory and white. Hyunjin always took off the extra sheets since they made his skin too hot for him to handle.

He went to the foot of his bed and looked at clothing set there (which were folded neatly and perfectly, as always). They consisted of yet another white buttoned shirt with short sleeves and loose dark navy sweatpants. He shivered from the cold air of his room and suddenly the clothes were calling his name, so he wasted no time to slip them on. The soft, loosely fit silk surrounded his thin figure in the most complimenting ways and he felt himself breathe in the relief of being dressed. He started over to his balcony, footsteps slightly wobbly. The large, ivory glass doors were covered with sleek, black curtains, whispering invitations to open them.

He listened, opening the double doors and stepped onto the white stone. For a second, he admired the rails surrounded the half moon shaped balcony. Walking to the edge of the balcony, he then leaned on the railing with his elbows, head in his hands. He took a moment, and simply breathed the salty air, looking out towards the brilliant, blue sea. 

Hyunjin wondered about the boy again; the cause of his racing heart. The boy that made him feel free. He made him feel almost normal since he was having a school boy crush on a non royal like kost kids would. A small, giddy smile made its way to Hyunjin’s plump lips. “Ahh… How I wish I knew your name,” Hyunjin quietly spoke to no one in particular, letting only himself and the breeze hear his words. He wanted to thank his savior but how could he ever do that when he didn’t even know who he was.

And then in an instant, an idea flooded itself into his mind. Hyunjin, in a quick and desperate motion, stumbled into his room again. He didn't want to forget his idea, so he would do it as soon as he possibly could. Hyunjin went for his dark, wooden desk in the far left corner, grabbing his sketchbook and a pencil. He sat in the cushioned desk chair and started drawing; drawing the boy from his memory, the boy he wasn’t even sure was real.

His pencil scratched the clean surface as he continued to trace and shade, tongue sticking out and eyebrows knit together as he focused. Hyunjin was telling himself repeatedly that he had to get every breath taking detail correct; he had to make him perfectly recognizable. 

Hwang Hyunjin, the prince of a nation hugged by the sea, was going to make a poster to find him, not caring if it brought him embarrassment given to him by his people. He had to know the man who saved his life. 

He would be sure to win his heart.


End file.
